Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron

Losing a game to the Kansas City Royals is simply unaccetable. I don’t care what you say: They’re a major league team, You can’t take them for granted, You’ve got to come ready to play.

Feh.

These are the Kansas City Royals and they’ve lost more games than Rob Schneider’s made lousy movies and when we show up to play them, we should be going all Guns of Navarone on them. I want Ortiz administering wedgies up and down the bench. I want David Wells sitting bare-assed on the mound, holding a sammich in one hand and pitching to David DeJesus with the other. I want Mike Timlin chasing Jimmy Gobble down East 47th Street with a pair of pliers.

What I don’t want is an excuciating exercise in squandered opportunities. Which is what we got last night.

We had Papi killing a potential big inning in the third by grounding into a double play, and then Manny ending a bases loaded threat in the fifth by doing the same [oh, and that lack o’ hustle down to first, even for a confirmed Manny lover like myself, was painful.]. The knee to the bag, however, came in the seventh. As sheets of rain began falling across the stadium, the Sox loaded the bases with one out, then promptly gave us all the brown-eye, as Tek struck out and Millar flied out.

And everything as going so nicely for the first couple innings. Christ, El Bencho even launched a home run off the left field foul pole, so if ever there was an evening for miracles to occur, this was it. [That bit in the dugout after Bencho’s dinger, when the boys gave him the silent treatment until Tek eventually jumped on his back? Priceless.]

But the wheels fell off after a brief rain delay. Timlin came in in the ninth and loaded the bases, but even as the Sox escaped unscathed, you got the feeling that nothing good would come of this. Then Arroyo (!) comes in for the tenth and gets ’em one, two, three. Not so in the eleventh, where Our Man Bronson gave up two walks and a hit before the inevitable sac fly sent us all home, wondering what the fork we’d just witnessed.

Okay, I’ll take some solace in the fact that the Yankees got their balls stepped on by the B-Jays. And Edgah went 3-for-4, which is nice. But if Curt can’t stop this madness tonight, I’m moving to Pittsburgh. Maybe.